Danny Byrd takes control with Solid State Logic Nucleus

Solid State Logic said us that Danny Byrd, the well-known UK Producer, has installed in his studio Solid State Logic Nucleus Control Surface for lifting the quality of his music and audio production and also thw studio workflow.

“Originally it was Matrix that piqued my interest,” Danny explains. “I was very tempted but it was a little bit out of my price range in terms of what I could justify – mostly because I’ve always been an in-the-box producer. And then SSL Nucleus comes along with all of the controller bits from Matrix but in a much smaller package that seemed ideally suited to my needs.”

“I’ve always been a big advocate of control surfaces, and Nucleus kills many birds with one stone. You don’t have a problem quickly controlling the master volume, you’ve got it right there. And you’ve got your key commands right where you need them. Then you’ve got your SSL preamps with your mics plugged in the back. It’s funny but you don’t think that there’s much difference between, say, saving a project with your mouse through the file menu and simply pressing a button on Nucleus. Sure, you’re talking about a second’s difference, but when you’re working that makes all the difference. Already Nucleus has speeded up my workflow quite a bit.”

But it’s not just the key commands that have aided Danny’s workflow – having touches that you expect on bigger consoles has also helped put him firmly in control. “Meter signals for all of the channels, for instance. On quite a lot of other control surfaces they just have a little light to show you that there’s a signal present, which is kind of useless – you know there’s a signal there! With Nucleus you get full metering so it feels like you’re working on a proper desk.”

“Another major plus is the preamps, the same SuperAnalogue Preamps that are in Duality. Up to now I’ve been recording straight in through my soundcard, but with these preamps I can definitely tell the difference. It’s good to have that reassurance that you’ve got exactly the same quality that you get with SSL’s bigger desks. So far I’ve only recorded one set of vocals through them and I didn’t know what to expect, but the sound was brilliant, the clarity was excellent. In fact I mixed this track recently and then played it out at the Global Gathering festival and you could hear the clarity in the vocals … you could hear all of the words – and that’s quite rare for a drum’n’bass track!”

“Ultimately it just feels that much more professional to have Nucleus in the studio. Sometimes I walk past my room and I see it glowing there and it makes me want to work on some music, you know? A part of that is the great build quality, it’s just got that SSL … ‘feel’.”

“Yeah, I’ve got SSL gear lust now. So I’m quite interested in getting X-Desk with the X-Panda to use alongside Nucleus. Or maybe even an upgrade to a Matrix! But to be honest I’m quite happy with Nucleus at the moment.”